Layer Cake
by RottingXWings
Summary: I was just trying to get him to eat and maybe forget about the lack of cases. How it has gotten us into a net of mysteries and murders is a pure mystery. And how sexy Sherlock is is a mystery as well. Wait, that's not what I meant! Watson, first person, romance and mystery. Never mind the title, ok?


**AN: Well, hello! A new story it is then. I won't say much, not now anyway! I have no idea where this is going, but I hope you enjoy. Also, I wanted to credit the manga Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro because this is basically the first chapter's plot stolen and rewritten with the Sherlock characters for your enjoyment. :) Go read it, the mysteries are WICKED. Seriously. **

Sherlock had been acting quite glum as of lately. That was understandable. No mysteries in town, not even a few interesting thieves or suicides, let alone juicy serial killers like he loved them.

Personally, I still frowned upon how insensitive he was towards the victims and their family, although to be completely honest, seeing him twirl around the room shouting it was Christmas never failed to make me smile on the inside. God, was he ever childish. And that adorable smile of his which he did, I'm quite sure, in the sole purpose of annoying me.

But right now he was lying on the couch.

"So, how's that experiment of yours going? Are the eyeballs staying in the freezer for much longer?" I asked, hoping he'd respond. He didn't. He hadn't answered anything for days. Perhaps he was thinking, but if it was the case, it was something I wouldn't even try understanding: I knew better than to pry into Sherlock's business, which was beyond human comprehension anyway.

"Hey, Sherlock," I called to him, suddenly having an idea. Maybe he just needed to get his ideas off of criminals. Yes, that sounded nice.

"Sherlock," I repeated louder, rising up to touch his shoulder.

"I can hear you, John," he replied sharply, still staring at the ceiling. I sat back down.

"That's nice to know," I heard myself sigh. Wow, he sure could exasperate me sometimes.

"Did you want to tell me something?" my flatmate's voice sounded far away, though perhaps closer than his spirit was at the moment.

"No. No, no, I wouldn't want to interrupt your thinking."

He stayed silent for a second, and I opened facebook again, thinking he had fallen back into his thoughts. Perhaps I should ask Lestrade or Donovan if this happens often, I thought.

"I'm sorry, John. Mysteries are like food to me. I need them," he sat down with a sigh. It was the first time in three days, and I understood that it had involved a huge effort by looking at him. Perhaps I should have let him do whatever he was doing. "What were you saying?"

"Oh, I was just going to suggest we go for a walk. Maybe get some food or something," I offered, wondering how he would react. He hadn't eaten for quite long now, ever since that mystery with the lady in blue, but obviously he wouldn't notice that. He'd probably label my idea of going out to eat as ridi-

"Sounds like a great plan," he smiled, although I couldn't tell if it was sincere or forced. "Where shall we go?"

"Wherever you want," I replied, relieved that he seemed to act as normal as Sherlock could possibly act.

"I want to go to McDonalds," he declared, throwing on his jacket already, a grin on his thin lips.

"Of all places," I rolled my eyes with a chuckle. Whatever made him happy. I would be satisfied if he ate, even if it was just disgusting American chips, excuse me, fries, because they couldn't be bothered to bloody use the words correctly.

"So is this a… What did you call it when two people who like each other have fun together? A date, was it?" Sherlock asked, pulling his collar up and doing the sexy cheekbones thing again. Oh God, will he ever stop doing that?

"No, it's not. No, I don't think it is, no. No," I replied, perhaps insisting on the no a bit too much.

The detective looked at me and raised an eyebrow. Explanations were demanded silently.

"Dates are when people like each other _the other way_," I articulated carefully, hoping he wouldn't misunderstand this time. There was a silence.

"You were supposed to meet your girlfriend yesterday," my flatmate stated rather than asked.

"How do you know?" my lips had moved before I could think. Great, I was giving him an opportunity to show off again. Indeed, I was supposed to meet Sally yesterday, but Sherlock's state had worried me and I had canceled our rendezvous at the risk of being dumped. But Sally was more patient than the others and so I still had a girlfriend.

For now.

"I saw the note on the coffee table," he responded, staring into space. Great, it was something as obvious as that.

I shrugged. What could I tell him? That I didn't go because he looked like a poor sick little kitten- What? No, that's not what I meant, oh God, no, I meant that he looked sick. God, where did I get that from?

The only time I noticed how beautiful London's busy streets were was when Sherlock was with me. Everything suddenly came alive, as if only his smile could unfreeze time. London was gorgeous, but she hid her face under a routinely mask of normalness. Nothing could stay normal with Sherlock Holmes.

Wait, what was I even thinking? Oh God, I'm quite sure this is not how I'm supposed to feel about him.

I mean, not like I had any feelings towards him! We were friends. It's just… He… Well, I guess it's hard to explain, but he was the brush that coloured the world.

We arrived to the McDonalds, and Sherlock seemed happy and perhaps even ready to eat one of their horrid cheeseburgers. I ordered some chicken nuggets. These were the only edible food in here, I swear. They're actually pretty good. Ok, they're excellent.

Oh, don't tell me we came here because he magically figured out I liked (adored) chicken nuggets. Judging by his smug look, I had guessed right.

We sat down at a table in a corner, and my friend occupied the chair that let him sit with his back to the wall, to see the whole place easily, as I later figured out.

"It's been a while since we've eaten out-" he started and stopped. I looked around, smelling trouble. My heart dropped.

There, on the floor, lied a body-a dead one, I concluded as much from the gleam in Sherlock's eyes as from its twisted position. Frightened customers were beginning to form a small crowd around it. Before I knew what was going on, Sherlock was pushing through, shouting he was a doctor, let him pass, excuse him. Oh God, that man lied like he breathed.

By the time I got to the corpse, for it was indeed a corpse, Holmes was mumbling deductions excitedly.

"…Nearing her forties, single, artist, superstitious, owns a white cat, three sugars in her coffee, dislikes ketchup…"

"Sherlock," I whispered.

"Oh, John, here you are. How perfectly excellent. What do you think of her?" the man asked. I sighed. Sherlock Holmes was alive again, and that _always_ meant danger.

_Exciting._

"She looks quite dead indeed," I started carefully. "I agree with the age you gave her, and the cat, judging by the scratches on her hands, but I don't see where you got the rest."

And now he would tell us all his deductions like a brilliant show-off.

"Single: no sentimental jewelry, the only men on her cellphone's numbers list are obviously people from work, no one notes their boyfriend's last name, especially since she didn't write her friends' last names. Artist: tries to look good and generally takes care of her looks, but no manicure. Why? Because she knows it won't last. You can see a smudge of ink near her elbow, and her hands show that she often holds a pen of some sort. So, she draws or writes often, has an ink spot in an unlikely place, and works with her hands: artist. Superstitious, because that amulet of hers – look at it, John- is a Wicca symbol of protection. The cat is white, look at the wallpaper on her cellphone. It's a bad shot, so obviously it's her cat and not a random picture from the internet. Yes, I've taken a look at her phone, don't interrupt me, yes-yes, I will put it back as soon as I'm finished. Dislikes ketchup, because there is no ketchup bottle at her table, yet she didn't bother to get any," Sherlock concluded.

There we go.

"What about the three sugars in her coffee?" I questioned.

"I saw her put them in," he smiled. Well, at least that was humanly comprehensible.

"Well, what have we got there? Sherlock Holmes in person!" Lestrade's voice greeted us from behind. We spun around to face the police officer.

"Hey, freak," Inspector Donovan glared at the consulting detective before nodding to me as a greeting and proceeding to evacuating the customers.

"This woman was murdered," my flatmate informed Lestrade, who nodded.

"And as always, you just happen to be at the place of the murder," Anderson snorted, popping out of nowhere.

"Why is Anderson here? Anderson, stand in a corner and don't look at anything," Sherlock ordered. The man tried protesting, but his superior told him to comply. Amazing. It was simply amazing how Sherlock moved land and sky and acted as if that was completely normal.

"How did you know she was murdered?" I asked.

God, I just fell for it again.

"Poison, John, poison, I can recognise any poison's effect on the human body," he answered, his eyes still scanning the cadaver.

"Why are you here?" Donovan frowned, clearly unhappy that we were.

"We were eating," I explained, guessing that Sherlock would ignore the question. I guessed right.

"On a date," she raised an eyebrow half-questioningly and probably half-disapprovingly.

"No, no, not a date. No, just eating. No," I protested. Why in bloody hell did people always think we were a couple? We were most definitely not.

"So, what exactly happened?" Lestrade asked. I gave him a thankful smile and looked at Sherlock. If someone knew, it was him.

"She enters, goes to the lavatory, exits a few minutes later. She glances at the menu and makes her order, a cheeseburger, fries and a small coffee. She goes to her tables, sits down, puts sugar in her drink, takes a sip, unwraps the cheeseburger, takes a few bites and drops dead onto the floor. The fries remain untouched," he said, staring into space. He was doing it again, the thing where he figured out impossible things in a matter of minutes and then declared it was obvious.

"So you suppose the poison was in her coffee or her food," the inspector frowned.

"Yes, now please shut up," Sherlock replied absent-mindedly.

"So the culprit is obviously one of the employees, since no one else could have touched her food," Anderson concluded from his corner, earning a hateful glare from the detective.

"No, no, nonsense!" the latter exclaimed, exasperated, perhaps more by himself than by Anderson. "That would be too easy, too stupid, and also impossible. She looked at the menu, Anderson, she looked at the menu! That means she wasn't a regular client, the killer couldn't know she was here, he couldn't be here, he couldn't!"

"Are you saying it wasn't a premeditated crime?" Sally raised an eyebrow and looked at him skeptically.

"Ridiculous, of course it was premeditated, of course it was… But how, how, how?" Sherlock moaned. Well, _someone_ was clearly enjoying this.

No one could answer. Indeed, how? No one had touched the meal except for the employees, and it would have been quite stupid of them to kill the woman, as they would easily be deduced. Besides, Holmes was right: the killer couldn't know she would come here, could he?

"Oh," Sherlock whispered. "Yes. Clearly, obviously. Arrest the employee who made this cheeseburger, that would be that young lady over there. This case is closed."

"What? But her motives-" Lestrade started.

"She's a psychopath," the detective interrupted him.

"How do you know that?" Anderson frowned. And now Sherlock would tell us all of his brilliant deductions once more, let's go, Mister Show-off-

"I don't have time to answer obvious questions, I'm a busy person. John, let's go," my flatmate grabbed my hand and dragged me outside, barely leaving me the time to wave goodbye to the surprised cops.

He let go of my hand, but didn't slow down, his pace clearly contradicting his words: this case was _not_ over.

"Sherlock, why did you tell them the case was closed?" I questioned. This was getting fishier by the minute. What the hell had he gotten us into this time? Whatever it was, it looked dangerous and undeniably fun.

"Why do you think?" he answered, not looking at me. Why couldn't he look at the people he talked to? His blue eyes were always staring at something we couldn't see, and it made my heart ache to think how it must be to live in a world that the people around you don't see.

I wished he could see our world. I wished he'd just stay with us.

"Let me take a guess. You want to make Scotland Yard hate you even more, possibly enough to find a reason to luck us up in jail?" I ironized, and a part of me chuckled victoriously as Sherlock's thin lips curled into a subtle smile.

"Perhaps," he commented.

"And the real reason is?" I insisted.

"I need them out of the way."

I looked at him, startled. Well, hadn't expected that! Although that sounded like something I should have expected, knowing Sherlock. But did I really know him? Was it even possible to know Sherlock Holmes? Sure, I knew his habits – talk to the skull when he was thinking, play violin at night when he couldn't sleep, drink hot milk when it rained, wear blue underwear on Tuesdays and devour the chocolate ice cream I bought as soon as I had my back turned around. I knew his height, his weight, his shoe size, the time he woke up at. I knew more about him than any other human on Earth did, and yet I couldn't judge whether he was happy or sad. I couldn't find the right words to help him when he needed support. I couldn't-

Make him eat! I realized with horror that we had been interrupted before he could ingest a single bite. I let out a small sigh.

"Sherlock?" I called out as we arrived to our flat and Sherlock rummaged for his keys.

"Yes?" he responded distractedly, pulling out a set of skeleton keys.

"Wait, wait, I have keys," I protested. Too late.

"Sherlock, don't use those strange things on my poor door!" our landlady – not our housekeeper – scolded, giving him a motherly glare. Good old Mrs Hudson, always there to suffer from _someone's_ little quirks.

"Sorry, Mrs Hudson, I lost my keys," Sherlock shouted, already dashing upstairs while I was still closing the door whether I should or shouldn't interrogate him about the reasons of the apparently permanent presence of skeleton keys in his pocket. Shouldn't won. He probably had his reasons.

"Sherlock, don't you want to eat?" I asked as I finally reached our living room.

My friend didn't answer. He was sound asleep in the armchair.

It was too early to sleep, but I decided to let him be. He deserved it, after three or four days of staying up in a row.

"You'll ruin your health like that," I heard myself sigh as I went into his room to get him a blanket. I'd rather have him catch criminals than colds.

Then I sat down and began typing up my summary of the case so far, but didn't get very advanced on it, too distracted by Sherlock's peaceful face. Oh God, his cheekbones… Soon enough, I also fell asleep into a quiet, soft slumber filled with dreams of blankets, of white cats and of cheeseburgers.

I awoke to Sherlock's impatient shouts for me to get up already. I opened my eyes and examined the room.

Judging by the amount of sunlight penetrating by the windows, it was around 7 in the morning. My laptop had run short on power and shut down. There went my summary of the case.

"John, why are you not changed yet?" Holmes dashed into the living room, still buttoning his purple shirt of sexiness. Wait, what? No, I meant his purple shirt, period.

"What time is it?" I stood up groggily. No way to get a good night's sleep with a flatmate like mine. Oh, my bed, how it beckoned me… Stupid uncomfortable armchair.

"Ah, who cares about time, there's a murderer on the run! Investigation doesn't wait!" he exclaimed, pushing me into my room and throwing me a clean shirt before running out and into the living room again.

"Well, it waited until now," I remarked grumpily, deep in my thoughts about which side of the shirt was the front. You could say I wasn't a morning person.

"I needed Scotland Yard out of the way," he shouted from somewhere in the flat. I finally found the answer to my dilemma and pulled the piece of clothing on. My thoughts were getting clearer.

"Let's go, John, let's go," he dashed into my room again and pushed me out.

"What about breakfast?" I heard myself protest.

"We'll eat there," he retorted, occupying himself with his shoelaces. After I pulled my shoes and my jacket on, he dragged me downstairs and started walking in the direction of the crime scene with the speed and determination of a train without bothering to lock the door. I did that and jogged to catch up with him before picking up his pace.

"So, what's the big plan?" I huffed. Did he walk this fast on purpose Sometimes I was sure he was doing things just to annoy me. But then he also did some very sweet things. Except they usually turned out to be a part of his plans. Or they ended up not working very well, like the time when he exploded the oven trying to bake me muffins as an excuse for pushing me out of a window for the sake of an investigation.

"Simply investigate, look around without stupid dogs in our way," he replied. Somewhere, Anderson was probably feeling very loved.

"What do you expect to find?" I inquired.

"Clues."

"No shit, Sherlock," I chuckled as we entered the McDonalds. Despite the early hour, a good part of the chairs were already occupied by sleepy customers, and more were dashing about, dipping striped neckties into their morning coffee, cursing, and hurrying to work.

"She enters," he murmured, his gaze flying from one spot to another. Thrash can, menu, table, floor, table, counter, employee, table- I gave up. Following his eyes made me dizzy.

Thankfully, he stopped that soon enough to pull me somewhere again. Wait, that wasn't better at all.

"She enters the lavatory," he continued his litany, his icy stare following the invisible woman.

Oh no, he wasn't-

I tried resisting, but it was futile.

"Sherlock, what the hell are you doing, dragging a man into the bloody female lavatory?" I hissed, shaking his hand off my shoulder. Oh Gosh, what would people think?

"Well obviously the _female_ victim wouldn't go into the _male_ lavatory," he rolled his eyes, slamming the first toilet cabin's door open and glaring at its walls. He then proceeded to the next one.

"Sherlock, what are you doing?" I followed him as a scared teenager dashed out of the room. So much for a discrete investigation. Way to go, Sherlock.

"Looking for clues," he retorted, examining graffitis on the inside of one of the cabins' door.

"Ok, I'm serious. What in the world are you expecting to find?" I sighed as he pulled me inside and closed the door to point at a series of black words. Was I the only one to find our situation more and more awkward by the minute?

"this," he pointed at one of the inscriptions. I could feel his breath on my hair, his body behind mine, his hand on my shoulder. So close… Too close.

I tried hard to concentrate on the words, but his smell, his heat were too distracting. Nevertheless, I forced myself to read the clue (although I still didn't understand how it was a clue at all) out loud in a steady voice. Well, as steady as possible with Sherlock's fit body pressed against mine.

It was an address and a date.

"How do you know she's the one who wrote it?" I questioned.

"Same marker as the one she had with her, and very fresh, three days at the most," Sherlock explained.

"So… What does that tell us?"

"The victim knew she was going to die. She needed to leave a message in a place where the killer wouldn't see it, like the lavatories. The mystery is… Of all things, why would her last words be our address and today's date?"

**AN: **

"**We should get out of this lavatory now," I suggested after a short silence. Sherlock coughed, apparently noticing ** **how awkward our current situation was.**

"**Yes, we should do that," he agreed. I attempted to unlock the door. Oh no. No. No, no, no.**

"**The door is stuck."**

"**Oh, oh well."**


End file.
